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by collyw 1984 days ago
Given that it took a year for the virus to have any effect in Spain, then all of a sudden it was very intense, wouldn't it be more likely that the test was botched?

There are a lot of false positives with PCR (0.8 - 4% according to this article https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lanres/article/PIIS2213-2...), so that makes a lot more sense than the virus being more or less dormant for a year then going wild.
1 comments
DonaldFisk 1984 days ago
> wouldn't it be more likely that the test was botched?

That's what I want to find out. From what you just wrote, the probability the test result is correct is at least 96%. But, as the result is so surprising and the tests aren't 100% reliable, it should still be checked.

You shouldn't assume it's a false positive simply because it doesn't fit in with our current understanding. Maybe our current understanding is wrong.

link
collyw 1983 days ago
"Then they ran tests on samples taken between January 2018 and December 2019 and found the presence of the virus genome in one of them, collected on March 12, 2019."

If they did 100 samples you would expect between 1 and 4 false positives. (It doesn't go into detail about how many, but it's clearly more than one).

link